A case study of life cycle impacts of small-scale fishing techniques in Thailand

AbstractFish provides an important source of protein, especially in developing countries, and the amounts of fish consumed are increasing worldwide (mostly from aquaculture). More than half of all marine fish are caught by small-scale fishery operations. However, no life cycle assessment (LCA) of small-scale fisheries and no LCA of marine fishery operations in Asia (Thailand) exists today. We perform LCAs to compare the impacts of three different fishing techniques: crab gill-nets, squid traps, and fish traps. Primary data sourced from four different fishers were used. We distinguished the life cycle inventories for three different seasons (northeast monsoon, southwest monsoon and pre-monsoon), since the time spent on the water and catch varied significantly between the seasons. Our results showed the largest impacts from artisanal fishing operations affect climate change, human toxicity, and fossil and metal depletion. Our results are, in terms of global warming potential, comparable with other artisanal...